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Business Traveller is a monthly feature show about making the most of doing business on the road.

(CNN) — On the court and on the road all year round, tennis champion Rafael Nadal knows how to enjoy the traveling life.

The former world number one has been jet-setting around the globe on the professional circuit since the tender age of just 15.

Along the way, the man crowned the “King of Clay” has learned a trick or two about performing at his peak whilst living out of a suitcase — not to mention winning the most sought after titles in tennis.

Here he shares his top tips for making a success of life on the road.

On a lifetime of travel …

I started to travel like this at the age of 15 so for me, it’s normal. Some days you get tired and you feel “I want to stay at home a little bit more,” but it’s only the moment.

Later when I am in different places, normally I feel very well and happy and excited.

See also: What the world spends on business travel

On keeping family and friends close …

I normally have a group of good people around me and that helps a lot. Be with the people that you feel comfortable with.

When you travel around the world and you visit the same place every year, then you (eventually) feel a little bit like home in most of the places.

On the perfect hotel room …

It’s important to have a good space in the room, especially for me because normally we have a lot of things in the room, a lot of racquets (and) I need the space for massage table.

I like to feel that everything is completely clean. It’s important to feel that the bed is good … for the back, for these kind of things.

On co-owning a luxury hotel in Mexico …

I am from an island, from Mallorca, so I know what things I really try to find when I visit a place. The views from the hotel to the beach, to the sea are very important to me.

See also: Creating the airport of the future

All my life I lived in front of the sea and always try to find the right views … to have the chance to watch the sea from every place.

(Also), when you are in a hotel in front of the sea, you need to relax. Here (at the Secrets Aura Resort on the island of Cozumel) is great in my opinion because even if the hotel is 100% full, you don’t feel it.

On packing light …

It depends how long will be the travel but this time … for almost two months, I travel with three bags.

Normally I travel with around five to seven racquets, that’s all. (In a) tennis bag always you put shoes, you put strings, grips, these kind of things that without we cannot play tennis.

On punctuality …

I am always late. I am relaxed always and at the end, the last moment, (it’s) tradition for me.

On conquering nerves whilst in the air …

If the plane moves, some turbulence, I am nervous flyer.

See also: Tablets and Wi-Fi transform flights

My hands start to sweat and I know to relax (I have) to listen to music, to try to watch some films.

On travel superstitions …

I’m only superstitious on the tennis court.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/12/travel/rafa-nadal-business-traveller/index.html?eref=edition

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Deborah Knight, the grandmother of kidnapping victim Michelle Knight, participates in a community balloon-release service in Michelle’s honor on Thursday, May 9, in Cleveland. Four females were found in a home on Seymour Avenue in the Clark Fulton neighborhood on Monday. Since then, the neighborhood and the nation have wondered how they were held captive without anyone noticing sooner.

Authorities say Ariel Castro held three women — Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight. DNA tests confirmed that he fathered a girl born to Berry, who was among those rescued, the Ohio attorney general’s office said Friday. His house, third from left, is now a crime scene.

57-year-old Ronice Dunn moved into the neighborhood in 1984. For years after Berry and DeJesus disappeared, she joined in neighborhood vigils and prayer groups for their safe return.

A building sits boarded up on Seymour Avenue. The Clark Fulton neighborhood is beset by nearly double-digit unemployment, and one in every five houses is in foreclosure.

The media set up tents near Castro’s home.

Kinkel Avenue is a few blocks from Castro’s home.

The house of Onil Castro’s two sons, where he was staying when he was arrested on Kinkel Avenue. He and his brother Pedro were arrested along with Ariel Castro, but later were released and not charged.

“Why didn’t I notice anything? What should I have been looking for?” asked Mickie Wodgik, who spent years living across the street from Castro and, it turns out, the three missing women.

Around the corner from Seymour Avenue, graffiti is written on an abandoned building.

A street view shows West 25th Street, which runs perpendicular to Seymour Avenue.

Cynthia Conor, who has lived in the same house for 38 years, often drank with Castro and and his brother Pedro, she said. Her father trained Castro for his school bus job.

A man stands on Clark Avenue in front of painted buildings.

This boarded-up building sits across the street from Castro’s house.

Pastor Joe Abraham has ministered to many in this neighborhood for more than 25 years, including as the leader of Scranton Road Bible Church.

People hold balloons during a community balloon-release service in kidnapping victim Michelle Knight’s honor.

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Cleveland (CNN) — Outwardly, there is little about the two-story, clapboard house on Cleveland’s Seymour Avenue that hints at the decade of horror that authorities say played out inside its walls.

With its boarded-up windows and peeling paint, the whitewashed house blends easily in the few dozen blocks that make up this hardscrabble, compact Westside neighborhood in Ohio’s second-largest city.

People here say they are neighborly, but cautious — of authority and, sometimes, of one another. They socialize, but they never pry. It is a byproduct of the stark poverty that grips this place and the problems that come with it.

Over the years, everybody in this neighborhood has lost someone or knows someone who has lost someone — from a shooting or a drug overdose or a trick gone bad. But even here, where life can sometimes be cheap, the story of what happened in the house on Seymour Avenue has shocked the sensibilities of a place that residents call “the neighborhood.”

Friends haunted by memories of Castro

Relief and joy in Cleveland

Kidnapping victim’s advice on healing

Moms of missing kids: We’ll never give up

It’s inside that house where authorities say three young women who disappeared from Cleveland’s streets more than a decade ago were held captive by Ariel Castro, a former school bus driver.

For those who know these streets and the man accused of unspeakable acts, there are only questions about how horror could hide in plain sight for so long.

“Why didn’t I notice anything? What should I have been looking for?” asks Mickie Wodgik, who spent years living across the street from Castro and, it turns out, the three missing women.

“Were we all that oblivious?”

The news traveled fast

By now, everybody in the neighborhood knows the story: On Monday night, one of the women made a desperate attempt to escape after her captor left her alone, catching the attention of two men who knocked down a door to free her, a child and, ultimately, the other two women.

“My name is Amanda Berry. I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been missing for 10 years. I’m here, I’m free now,” the caller told a 911 dispatcher.

The last time anyone saw Berry, she was finishing her shift at a Burger King in 2003 on the eve of her 17th birthday — just a few miles from where police would find her 10 years later.

There, police also found Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus. Knight disappeared when she was 19 in 2002, and DeJesus went missing when she was 14 in 2004.

News here travels fast, but that news rocketed through the tight rows of squat warehouses and clapboard houses and bounced through the bodegas, bars and gas stations that dot the main thoroughfares of the neighborhood formally known as Clark Fulton.

Within hours, it was crawling with police, FBI agents and reporters with that one overarching question: How did this happen? How did horror hide in plain sight for so long?

The answers are harder to come by.

Diversity and difficulty

For as long as anyone can remember Clark Fulton has been a hard-fought, working class neighborhood: A home to people as they made their way up in life or where they landed on their way down.

“Nobody lives here. They just stay here,” said Pastor Joe Abraham, who for more than 25 years has ministered to many in this neighborhood.

From the office of the second floor of the red brick Scranton Road Bible Church, the pastor has seen the changes first hand.

Once it was a thriving neighborhood, a place where immigrant families came for good jobs with the local steel mills and the cloth factory.

By the time the pastor arrived in the late 1980s, it was already a neighborhood in transition from predominantly white, made up of Slovak, Czech and German immigrants, to black and white to more recently mostly Hispanic.

The church reflects that history, with some 300 parishioners coming from across the racial, ethnic and the socioeconomic divide.

But unlike big cities, where streets are defined by their immigrant nationality, there is no Little Puerto Rico, no Little Dominican and no Little Mexico in Clark Fulton.

Today, it’s considered one of Cleveland’s most ethnically diverse neighborhood. It’s also considered one of the city’s more problematic, with one in every five houses in foreclosure and a nearly double-digit unemployment rate, according to figures.

Those problems have produced, well, other problems: drugs, prostitution and gangs.

Neighborly, but cautious

Wodgik landed in Clark Fulton in 1998, down on her luck and addicted to crack cocaine.

It wasn’t a life she aspired to in her middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of this city along the southern shore of Lake Erie. Who does? It’s just what happened, she says.

For nearly a decade, between 1998 and 2009, she lived on Seymour Avenue directly across the street from Castro — from what now people just call “THAT house.” For the last seven of those years, one, two and then three women were allegedly being held prisoner there.

“Our children played together and this whole time this is going on inside there. I can’t believe it. He took everybody’s kids for rides on his four-wheeler,” she said, fighting back tears.

Since the news broke, Wodgik has replayed the years, the meetings over and over in her mind.

“I keep thinking, did he say something? Did I miss it?”

There were little things, of course. In all those years, she says, he never invited her or her son into his home. He always pulled his car into this driveway and locked the chain-link fence. He always went into the side door, never through the front door.

But then again, there are a lot of people like that in Clark Fulton: Neighborly, but cautious.

“You know, you talk to people. But you don’t get in their business. … That can be problems for you,” says 31-year-old Angel Perez, sitting on the sagging porch reinforced with plywood boards on the block behind where THAT house sits.

Asked about whether he knew Ariel Castro, he said: “Yeah, I seen him around. I didn’t get in his business.”

But then again, Perez says, he sees everybody around. People hang out, and their children play together.

Wodgik knew Castro a little better, but not much. “I just thought that’s the way he was, private. And you’re allowed to be private,” she said.

But now, standing on the street, looking back and forth between THAT house and the one with a boarded up, broken window that she once called home, she wonders.

Again, with that question, how did we not know?

Tears of joy and of sadness

Everybody in the neighborhood travels along Seymour Avenue at some point. It’s one of the few two-way streets that runs east to west.

If there’s an accident, you take Seymour.

If there’s too much traffic, you take Seymour.

If you need a shortcut, you take Seymour.

Nearly every day for their more than 10 years of captivity, hundreds of people have traveled by THAT house.

Among them is 57-year-old Ronice Dunn.

There isn’t much that Dunn hasn’t seen or heard about since she first moved into in the neighborhood in 1984.

The way she tells it, her family was an oddity in the neighborhood: The first black family to move into Clark Fulton.

It was supposed to be step up from the Eastside neighborhood she came from, she says.

“I tell people I lived in the ghetto, and now I’m back in it,” she jokes, with an easier laughter spilling out across the living room of her home two blocks from THAT house.

She, like many, has shed tears this week.

Part of it’s the joy that “those girls” are home. Part of it, she admits, is sadness that for so long the girls were so near.

For years after Berry and DeJesus disappeared, she joined in neighborhood vigils and prayer groups for their safe return. A flyer pleading for information about DeJesus hung on a utility pole until just weeks before her discovery.

Then to find out after all these years that they were so close, she says…

“I keep thinking we should have heard their cries,” she says, tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Those poor babies.”

Drug dealers, a body, a predator

Pastor Abraham has walked and driven the same streets as Wodgik and Dunn and has the same questions. Perhaps there’s even more of a sense of sadness for him: He tends to these people, to these streets.

As the sound of merengue-flavored music booms from the speakers of a car idling at a stop light, the pastor looks through the open window of his office.

From here, he can see the homeless and the drug addicts panhandling and young children walking alone along a street three blocks from THAT house. One in five families, according to the Census, are broken in this community, with children being raised by either single mothers or grandparents.

Like everything in the neighborhood, the church — with its weathered red brick — has seen easier days.

Across the street, a sign on the shuttered Carnegie South Branch of the Cleveland Public Library advertises its new location. It closed months ago.

The hardship of Clark Fulton is never far from the pastor’s door. Over the years, he’s arrived at the church to find dealers in the parking lot, a body lying alongside of the building and, once, a potential child predator plying children with candy to take a ride in a car.

“Give me a half square mile, and I’ve got my hands full,” he says.

“It’s bad to say, but there isn’t much that shakes me anymore.”

But the imprisonment of Berry, her young daughter, Knight and DeJesus is different. “This has shaken me,” he says.

For the pastor, part of it is the depravity of the allegations: women chained, raped, impregnated and beaten to the point of spontaneous abortions over a period of years.

The other part, though, hits closer to home.

For a while, there were reports that one of his flock might be involved. Was it possible he, too, missed a sign? No, not this man. It can’t be, the pastor and so many others would say.

Abraham has ministered to Pedro Castro, the brother of the accused, who himself was arrested before it was announced he was not involved.

Later, with the Castro brother cleared of charges, Abraham’s prayers turned to the neighborhood.

Now what?

Gathered around a gray fold-out table, Abraham, Dunn and Wodgik joined a half-dozen others in a weekly prayer meeting.

On this day, the prayer turned to the three women and their families. May they find peace and togetherness.

It turned to the family of the accused. May they not be exorcised by a hurting community for the alleged actions of one.

It turned to the people of Clark Fulton. May they find a way to care for their children and for one another so that the things that police say happened in THAT house never happens again.

What will it take so that such horror is never hidden in plain sight again here?

They all know that soon the police, the FBI agents and the reporters will be gone. Who knows when the mayor will be back, says Dunn and others.

When it’s just back to being the neighborhood, then what?

“There’s got to be something that comes out of it, or we missed it,” Abraham said.

The answer rests with the people of Clark Fulton.

Logically, Dunn tells God, she knows there wasn’t anything she could do.

“This could have happened in Anywhere, U.S.A,” Dunn says afterward.

But it didn’t happen somewhere else. It happened here. It happened in THAT house. It happened in this neighborhood.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/11/us/cleveland-neighborhood/index.html?eref=edition

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Alex Ferguson has announced he is retiring at the end of this season, having won his 13th English Premier League title in more than 26 years as manager of Manchester United.

The 71-year-old is the most successful and longest-serving manager in United’s history, having also won two European Champions League crowns, five FA Cups and four League Cups.

Ferguson survived a difficult first four years at Manchester United before winning a title — the 1990 FA Cup. Here he celebrates with Bryan Robson, who became the first United captain to lift the trophy three times after beating Crystal Palace 1-0 in the final replay.

Ferguson lifted the European Cup Winners’ Cup for the second time in his career in 1991, when United beat Barcelona 2-1 in the final. He had previously won the now defunct tournament with Scottish club Aberdeen.

In 1993, United won the English title for the first time in 26 years, and Ferguson took the club on a tour of South Africa, where he met Nelson Mandela before the ANC leader became the country’s first post-apartheid president.

Ferguson celebrates with his assistant Brian Kidd after United won the Premiership again in 1994, then went on to secure a domestic double by beating Chelsea in the FA Cup final. United repeated the feat in 1996.

Ferguson with his grandson Jake before the 1999 FA Cup final victory against Newcastle that sealed United’s third double in six years.

Just four days later, United completed a treble with an incredible last-gasp win over Bayern Munich in the Champions League final. Ferguson and keeper Peter Schmeichel hold the trophy in Barcelona.

Ferguson tried to retire more than a decade ago, announcing at the start of the 2001-02 season that it would be his last. However, he changed his mind the following February but United failed to reach the Champions League final — which was to be played in his native Glasgow.

Another European title followed in 2008, but Barcelona handed United disappointment in the 2009 and 2011 finals. However, Ferguson and his players still earned a parade the latter season after winning a record 19th English league title — the Scot’s 12th.

The next season, United commemorated Ferguson’s 25 years as manager on November 5, 2011.

As a player, Ferguson was a prolific goalscorer for Scottish clubs St. Johnstone and Dunfermline, but his big move to Glasgow Rangers in 1967 proved disappointing and he left two years later. He ended his playing days at Ayr in 1974 without winning a major honor.

Ferguson made his name as a manager at Aberdeen. His fourth Scottish Cup win in 1986 was his last success with the Dons, having won three Scottish league titles and the 1983 European Cup Winners’ Cup — beating mighty Real Madrid in the final.

Ferguson, who briefly managed Scotland at the 1986 World Cup, overhauled the squad at Old Trafford and introduced some of the finest players to grace the EPL in the past two decades.

Arguably the most important signing was that of French forward Eric Cantona, a $1.9 million bargain from Leeds who led United’s surge to dominance in the 1990s.

The 1993 addition of young midfielder Roy Keane in a then British record transfer fee of £3.75 million from Nottingham Forest provided United with a ferocious future captain.

Ferguson also introduced young talent such as David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and the Neville brothers Gary and Phil — who all went on to become integral members of his team.

Ferguson played a key role in resurrecting the career of Beckham, who had been vilified by England fans after being sent off during the 1998 World Cup defeat by Argentina.

Ferguson famously beat United’s rivals Manchester City to sign Giggs as a teenager, and the Welsh winger has repaid his faith by staying with the club until the present day.

Ferguson’s signing of Cristiano Ronaldo in 2003 paid off as the Portugal forward fired United to Champions League glory in 2008 and was named world player of the year — the first from the EPL to do so — before joining Real Madrid in a record $130 million deal.

Ferguson is well known for his fiery temper and his motivational skills.

In 2003, he infamously kicked a boot into the face of Beckham in the dressing room after a match, but refused to apologize. “If I’d tried it 100 times or million times, it wouldn’t happen again,” he said. “If it did, I would carry on playing.”

United striker Wayne Rooney said Ferguson’s team talk ahead of the 2008 Champions League final against Chelsea in Moscow “made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.” United denied the London side a first European title after a penalty shootout.

United reached the final again the following season, but lost to Barcelona. Here Ferguson speaks with Britain’s Prince William at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Italy.

Ferguson’s last match on the European stage was a defeat by Ronaldo’s Real Madrid in the Champions League Round of 16 second-leg match at Old Trafford on March 5, 2013.

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Editor’s note: Are you a Manchester United fan? Send us your reaction and team shirt photos.

London (CNN) — English soccer’s most successful manager — Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson — is retiring at the end of the season after more than a quarter of a century at the helm, the club announced Wednesday.

The 71-year-old Scot has managed the English club, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and loved by millions of fans around the world, from Manchester to Manila and Montreal, since 1986.

During his 26 years in charge, Ferguson — a supporter of Britain’s Labour Party who’s renowned for dressing down players with the “hairdryer treatment” — has won more than 30 trophies, including 13 league championships.

Many fans took to Twitter to voice their appreciation, using the handle #thankyousiralex. He became Sir Alex when knighted by the queen more than a decade ago for his services to the game.

Manchester United Manager Sir Alex Ferguson announced he will retire at the end of the English Premier League season. Ferguson has managed the team for 26 years, making him the longest-serving manager in Premier League history. Ferguson looks on during a match between Manchester United and Crystal Palace in 2011 in Manchester, England.

Mike Krzyzewski, also known as Coach K, has coached Duke University’s men’s basketball team since 1980, putting him in his 33rd season as head coach. Krzyzewski calls a play to his team during a game against Presbyterian Blue Hose in 2011 in Durham, North Carolina.

Eddie Robinson served as Grambling State University’s head football coach for 57 seasons from 1941 to 1997. Robinson coached more than 4,000 players. Robinson is emotional during the National Anthem before his final game as head coach on November 15, 1997.

Al Arbour coached the New York Islanders for 20 years with a year-long stint as vice president of player development for the team in 1987. Arbour looks on during a game against the Philadelphia Flyers in 1980.

Andy Landers has coached the University of Georgia Lady Bulldogs basketball team since 1979 and continues to this day. Landers shouts directions to his team during a game against the University of California Golden Bears on April 1.

Gregg Popovich is in his 17th year as coach of the San Antonio Spurs. Popovich directs his team against the Los Angeles Lakers on April 14.

Tom Landry coached the Dallas Cowboys from 1960 to 1988 and turned the team into one of the most dominant in the National Football League until the early ’80s. Landry watches the Cowboys play against the San Francisco 49ers in 1982.

Connie Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics, now located in Oakland, from 1901 until his retirement at age 88 in 1950. Mack, left, speaks with a pitcher for the Athletics in 1920.

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Photos: Longest-serving coaches in sports

Will Mourinho replace Ferguson?

Bobby Charlton: Ferguson’s best moment

2012: Ferguson talks to CNN

‘Thank you for everything,’ say Manchester United fans

As well as dominating on the pitch, Ferguson has helped build the century-old soccer club into a huge business operation whose progress is followed on stock exchanges around the world.

Its shares dipped nearly 5% in early trading Wednesday.

The Old Trafford club is owned by the American Glazer family, who oversaw the club’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange last August.

For the 2011-2012 season, United increased revenues by £14.2 million to £117.6 million ($182.4), the highest of any club in the Premier League.

But it lost the top spot as the world’s most valuable sports franchise in this year’s Forbes list to Spanish soccer club Real Madrid. Forbes valued Manchester United at $3.17 billion, still ahead of Barcelona, another Spanish soccer club, and two U.S. outfits, the New York Yankees in Major League Baseball and the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL.

Ferguson will bow out after the club’s last game of the season, an away match against West Bromwich Albion, on May 19, according to a statement from Manchester United.

Watch: Alex Ferguson’s legacy

Before then he will have one more home game for the “Red Devils” at Old Trafford on Sunday, against Swansea City.

‘A bright future’

It’s not clear who the club will choose to replace him. Ferguson will join the club’s board as a director and “ambassador,” Manchester United said.

“The decision to retire is one that I have thought a great deal about and one that I have not taken lightly. It is the right time,” Ferguson said.

“It was important to me to leave an organization in the strongest possible shape and I believe I have done so.”

The quality of the team, the balance of the players’ ages and its upcoming youth squad will contribute to its continued “success at the highest level” and “ensure that the long-term future of the club remains a bright one,” he said.

Seven moments that defined Ferguson’s managerial career

Ferguson paid tribute to the club’s “players and staff, past and present,” thanking them “for a staggering level of professional conduct and dedication that has helped to deliver so many memorable triumphs. Without their contribution the history of this great club would not be as rich.”

He also expressed gratitude to his own family, the Glazer family, and the club’s many supporters, at home and abroad.

“Alex has proven time and time again what a fantastic manager he is but he’s also a wonderful person. His determination to succeed and dedication to the club have been truly remarkable,” Joel Glazer said.

The club also quotes former Manchester United and England captain Bryan Robson as saying Ferguson is the “greatest there has ever been.”

Alex Ferguson’s Man U trophies collection

Premier League: 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013

FA Cup: 1990, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004

League Cup: 1992, 2006, 2009, 2010

Champions League: 1999, 2008

Cup Winners Cup: 1991

Fifa Club World Cup: 2008

Uefa Super Cup: 1991

Inter-Continental Cup: 1999

FA Charity/Community Shield: 1990 (shared), 1993, 1994, 1996, 1997, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011

‘Extraordinary success’

Gavin Hamilton, editor of World Soccer magazine, told CNN he considers Ferguson to be unsurpassed as a manager in his time.

“In the modern era, where’s he’s dealt with the players on huge salaries and the corporate world that is now football, he has had extraordinary success,” he said.

“He’s tough and uncompromising and, I think, completely dedicated to being a winner.”

Whoever takes over at Old Trafford has a hard act to follow, Hamilton said — but Manchester United will have been planning carefully for this moment.

“There will definitely be someone in place, I think — the big question now is who that person will be because it’s been kept a secret from everyone until now,” Hamilton said.

Whoever it will be has a daunting, if exciting, prospect ahead.

“It’s the largest football club in the world, it’s the biggest management job in the world, and on top of that is the task of following the most successful manager in the club’s history,” Hamilton said.

Ferguson’s retirement ‘a sad day’

Alex Ferguson’s football legacy

2012: Ferguson: ‘Racism still exists’

Bookmakers are already taking bets on who will fill Ferguson’s shoes.

Names at the top of the list include Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho, formerly of Chelsea and currently at Real Madrid, and Everton manager David Moyes.

Other names in the mix include Borussia Dortmund manager Jurgen Klopp, Michael Laudrup of Swansea City and former Manchester United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, currently managing Norwegian team Molde.

Health concerns?

Fans’ thoughts are bound to turn quickly to the 2013-2014 season, starting in September, as Manchester United prepares to defend its domestic title and attempts another win in Europe.

As recently as last week, Ferguson suggested that he was fully involved in those future plans, promising the club would be “competitive” in the summer transfer market.

Speaking to Inside United, the club’s official magazine, Ferguson said: “Hopefully the players we bring into the club in the next year or so will be of the quality we need.”

Manchester United coasted to this year’s English Premier League title with a 3-0 victory over Aston Villa in April, with four games in hand.

Ferguson is due to undergo hip surgery this summer, according to UK media reports, but it’s not clear how much of a role health concerns have played in his decision to stand down.

“I think retirement’s for young people because you can do something else. When you get to my age, if your health is good, you like to work,” he told CNN in a 2010 interview.

Sports writer Mihir Bose said he was surprised by the timing of Ferguson’s decision, despite his upcoming surgery, saying he had expected him to carry on as manager for another couple of years.

Ferguson — who is seen as a kind of father figure by some of the young players he developed — has “that ability to reach out to people,” said Bose, but he is also a skilled political operator.

“He could be delightful but he was a man who made sure that he controlled the agenda,” he told CNN. “If you crossed his path he made it very clear that he controlled everything at Manchester United.”

Those who got the famous “hairdryer treatment” — loud shouting directly in someone’s face — included many sports journalists over the years. Ferguson would also refuse to speak to reporters if he didn’t like what they said.

Despite that thorny relationship, Ferguson will be remembered as an iconic figure in English football history, said Bose. The big challenge now is how Manchester United will manage the transition to ensure continued success, he added.

‘A sad day’

Former Manchester United and Denmark goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel told CNN he was still trying to make sense of the news.

“It is a sad day. I’m shocked, I’m sad, I’m disappointed. It’s a day I think everyone who loves Manchester United, everyone who’s worked with Sir Alex — it’s a day that we’ve been expecting, but I have to be honest I didn’t think it would be now — I thought it would be a couple of years down the line.”

Schmeichel said he was certain that Ferguson had not been forced out but had made the decision himself, given his record of success and changes already happening on the club’s board this summer.

He paid tribute to Ferguson’s knowledge, skills and philosophy as a manager, particularly his ability to bring on young players.

Internationally known footballers like David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and Nicky Butt were all created by Ferguson, Schmeichel said.

“He is the best manager in the world and he’s the best guy as well. He’s a really good friend as well.”

Ferguson’s talent has been in managing players individually rather than as a group, Schmeichel said.

“The end result is that everyone plays really well for the team,” Schmeichel said. “Yes, he can be hard, he can be tough. … In a way he becomes your second dad. He has to educate you in life, he has to prepare you for what comes next in life after football.”

‘Vision, energy, ability’

David Gill, who will step down as chief executive of Manchester United in June, said it had been a “tremendous pleasure” to work alongside Ferguson over the past 16 years.

“We knew that his retirement would come one day and we both have been planning for it by ensuring the quality of the squad and club structures are in first class condition,” he said.

“Alex’s vision, energy and ability have built teams — both on and off the pitch — that his successor can count on as among the best and most loyal in world sport.”

Ferguson began his career on the soccer pitch, playing for Scottish clubs Queen’s Park, St. Johnstone, Dunfermline, Glasgow Rangers, Falkirk and Ayr United.

But it was when he returned to the game as a manager, working at East Stirlingshire, St. Mirren and then Aberdeen that people really began to take notice.

He led Aberdeen to three Scottish titles, four Scottish cups, one League Cup and one European Cup Winners’ Cup before moving to Manchester United in November 1986 following the dismissal of former manager Ron Atkinson.

It didn’t take long for the Scotsman to start turning things round at a club that was then near the bottom of the league.

Since then, Ferguson has dominated the English game — his string of victories making him, according to the Manchester United website, “the most successful manager in British football history.”

CNN’s Alex Thomas and Patrick Sung contributed to this report.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/08/sport/football/uk-manchester-united-ferguson/index.html?eref=edition

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(CNN) — London City Airport wants to eradicate the many nuisances associated with flying.

Should they succeed, missing luggage, delayed flights and long security lines will be irritations of another era. Even wading through a sea of taxi drivers to find the cardboard placard that bears your name will be a thing of the past.

This streamlined experience is being delivered with the help of a technology known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Essentially, it is an overarching platform that allows a variety of devices or machines to communicate with each other.

This “machine to machine” communication (M2M) remains in its early stages, but its application is being tested in a number of areas. It is the foundation for “smart cars”, vehicles which are tuned in to avoid collision, and “smart lights”, which detect when you’ve woken up and then turn on.

London City Airport is the first airport in the world to test it in the field of commercial aviation.

Technology company Living PlanIt and retail developer Milligan will lead the project backed by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board. Over the next year, the airport will integrate different technologies to provide a taster of what’s possible.

Just what is the Internet of Things? Our interactive explains all

Many of the more advanced features involve tracking passengers through a mix of face recognition and crowd-sourcing software that already exists in airports, plus the GPS that is already available in smart devices. For instance, a traveler who pre-orders food online or though their smartphone will be able to have it delivered to them as they arrive at the departure lounge.

“When someone arrives, sensors will detect that person’s frame, and will notify the FB outlet to get everything ready,” explains Robin Daniels, Living PlanIt’s executive vice president of sales and marketing.

Similar technology can insure that a passenger who booked a taxi in advance can exit the airport and step immediately into a waiting car.

“There’s no reason you can’t have an app on your phone tell you the route and the correct exit (to find your vehicle),” says Daniels.

Other features will simply be about streamlining what’s already there. For instance, though luggage can be monitored to a degree, there’s no system in place to track it in real-time. What this means is that passengers and their luggage can be tracked at the same time. If a flyer checks his back but misses his plane, his luggage won’t be boarded.

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“If you’re a passenger, there will be no more sitting on a plane waiting for a bag to be found because whoever owns the bag missed their plane and now it has to be unloaded. Everything that’s uncomfortable, inconvenient or just a pain in the neck about traveling, we’re trying to turn into a more pleasurable experience,” says Daniels.

On the retail side, stores in the airport will use a combination of cameras and sensors to monitor buyer behavior and to get a better sense of what types of displays work. They will also be able to offer shoppers customized offers based on previous purchases.

“A lot of what they’re doing is putting data together and creating information to give a better customer experience,” says Joe Dignan, a chief analyst for public sector technology at Ovum. “You may get to the point where you walk past a Zara, and it says, ‘we noticed you bout a blouse last week, we have a sale on a skirt that will go with it.’”

Dignan says that some shopping malls have started embedding sensors in the floor to track where people walk, and on hangers to register which items get picked up the most.

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However some are concerned about safety and privacy issues of the new technology.

“I believe that as we increase our dependency on Internet of Things, and because it is not a fully stable technology per se, the probability of having problems increases,” says Evangeis Ouzounis, the head of the secure infrastructure and services unit at the European Network and Information Security Agency.

“I’m not saying it will happen, but we need to take measures now before the technology becomes commercially available.”

Ouzounis points out the potential for hackers to interfere with sensitive travel information and the smooth running of airport systems.

“They might jam a smart device to make systems not available in the airport, or play with the bar code of flight tickets, so that you can have access to a space you shouldn’t have access to,” he says, while admitting that these scenarios are extreme.

For Daniels privacy isn’t really an issue, as passengers can chose whether or not they “opt in”. Furthermore, the technology will actually allow airports to have a more sophisticated security system in place.

“If there’s suddenly a security issue, and someone is suddenly somewhere they shouldn’t be, the authorities can access the day-to-day information more easily,” he says.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/02/travel/london-city-airport-internet-of-things/index.html?eref=edition